Album Review

The only David Akeman CD to date, 15 minutes of good time comic songs ("Run Rabbit Run" — which will remind one of Chuck Berry's "Maybelline" — and "Good Ol' Mountain Dew"), funny story songs ("I'm the Man That Rode the Mule Around the World"), and dog songs ("Here Rattler Here"). The sound is crisp, the collection is too short, and a lot of it with remind listeners of Grandpa Jones (who has more material out), but it also represents a brand of banjo-playing and humor that country audiences devoured insatiably for decades. And it captures a brand of old-time banjo playing that has all but disappeared.

Biography

Born: 17 June 1915 in Annville, KY

Genre: Country

Years Active: '30s, '40s, '50s, '60s, '70s

To millions of younger country music fans, David Akeman, better known as Stringbean, was one of the comedy powerhouses of the Grand Ole Opry and television's Hee Haw, of which he was one of the original cast members. As a banjo player, however,...